Shatter and Crack
by orsumfenix
Summary: Because he's scared that if he stops acting tough then the act will crack and he'll shatter into a thousand pieces. Nine-centric.


**_Um... I_ really _don't know where this came from. Seriously, I just started writing and... _this_ came out. Still, it's the shortest amount of time it's EVER taken me to write ANYTHING (it literally only took, like, half an hour - my stuff usually takes MONTHS), so... here ya go. I don't usually write in this style, but i though that I might give it a try. _**

**_Disclaimer: I don't own Lorien Legacies, or Number Nine (no matter how much I might want to). Also, reviewing would be nice. I LOVE it when people review and get really uninspired when people don't. (If no one reviews, then I take the story down.) Enjoy! _**

_Because he's scared that if he stops acting tough then the act will crack and he'll shatter into a thousand pieces. _

He pretends to be made of steel, to be the toughest of them all (_unbreakable_, that's him), to be the one that will tear the Mogodorians limb from limb, because he knows that, if he doesn't, then he will completely and utterly break down. (He's bloodthirsty, through and through, but there's _so much more _to him than that.)

Really, Number Nine is _scared_. He has every right to be. Before, it was different. Before, he was immortal, immortal at the price of eight others staying alive _for _him, but now he can be killed at any time and he would have no way of stopping it (Eight, was proof enough of that).

He feels like he has this gaping hole in his heart, one that threatens to tear him apart if he ever lets the act fall. It started _years _ago, on Lorien, when his mind (once pure, and innocent – it's not like that anymore) was exposed to things no child's mind _should _be, things such as explosions and deaths and the soldiers and _fear_. The look on Sandor's face, the pure horror and terror that they wouldn't make it to the airship field on time.

That's the first knife, as their ship flies away and left behind the burning people of Lorien (friends, family, strangers – all are destroyed alike). It rips inside his chest and pierced his heart, a pain that has never gone away.

The second knife comes whole _years _later, with a scar burning (burning, burning, _burning_) itself onto his ankle (his own _ankle_, branded and burnt and _scarred_), showing that he's one ally down, one person close to death. One of the only ones like him, one of the last of his _kind _(he's part of an endangered species, and isn't _that _a joke).

Number One (and he remembers her, god he _remembers _her), with her long blonde hair and deep blue eyes and frankly _charming _attitude (nasty or not, she was _one of them_) was gone. Gone, dead, and not coming back.

Then it's Two (sweet, _innocent_ Two), the mark wrapping itself onto him and burning (burning, searing, _agony_) him, just to show that another one of them is _dead _(dead and gone, gone for forever, never going to meet her kind _again_). This knife cuts deep inside of him, into his stomach, and he can practically _feel _the blood spilling out and reminding him of all that he's lost.

He dreams of her, the blood the same colour as her hair, he dreams of the knife cutting inside of him, and it breaks his heart (so he pretends that he has no heart to break, so that no one can possibly know how _damaged _it really is).

And when Maddy (oh, _Maddy_) waltzes into his life and ripped it apart by the seams… She is the third knife, and the fourth and fifth and the sixth and she _betrays _him, gains his trust and betrays him and slices him open, _cuts _him apart bit by bit and _slits _his arms, his legs, his thighs and his face and it _hurts_, (oh _god _it hurts), and he wants to cry _so badly _but he can't allow himself to break, he just _can't _and…

And then she _dies_, screaming and shrieking and looking _so scared _and he can't do _anything _and the seventh knife goes right into his heart, and he just wants the pain to _stop_, but...

(But he's Number Nine, and he can't die, so as payment _everyone else _has to.)

And then _Sandor _(wonderful, intelligent, _brilliant _Sandor) actually _begs _him to murder him, to end this torture and _living hell _that he's faced with. And he does, he kills his own _father _(because, in this case, life is better than death). He doesn't allow himself to break, even as the knife (a nice, _sharp _one this time, the sharpest one yet), drives right through his chest and sending phantom blood rolling down him.

Then _Three_, when he's all alone with his wounds and the knives return, this one with a vengeance as it cuts through his stomach and makes him want to cry and scream and shout (but he can't give the Mogs that satisfaction). And why can't the knives just _leave him alone_, why can't they just go away and let him heal himself instead of inflicting more damage?

And next is _Sam_, gone because of him, because he was too _careless _(like always, like it's _his _fault, like it always is). And John hates him for it, and he doesn't blame him for it (he hates himself, too). And it _never stops_ being _all his fault_, does it?

And then they all meet up, and Setrakus Ra _leers _at him (he knows about the knives, about all the cuts and the wounds, he's _sure _of it) and he fights him because isn't that all that he _can _do? What else is he good for?

Then they meet Five (and he's weird, but _one of them_) and Sam's _okay _(he's okay, he's fine, but the place where the knife went in doesn't throb any less) and now they have _Malcolm_, who's a Loric _genius _(despite not being one himself) and everything seems like it's going to be _okay_.

But the others are _careless_, careless like he was and they're going to get themselves _killed _(and hell if he'll lose another Garde member).

(He just wants to _scream_, to fall down on the floor and let the wounds _bleed _and let them all notice his pain because _how have they not already noticed_?)

Then comes Eight (Eight, who's one of his _best friends_), who _idiotically _played the hero and threw himself in front (and how can he _ever _live with this?), not understanding that it would be _okay _for Nine to die, because that would mean _no more scars _and _no more knives_.

It may be Eight that gets a physical one, but the knife drives straight _into _Nine's head and heart and (it's three steps forward, two steps back, and every fibre of his being _aches_) and he can barely even _remember _a time when the knives didn't follow his every move and dig into him at every _possible _opportunity (except that he _can_, and that makes it all the more painful).

And he knows, Number Nine _knows _that if he lets up the façade of being _strong_, being a _warrior _then all of him will crumble with it, his resilience fading away and he will _shatter _and _break _into a _thousand pieces _(a _million _pieces – un_fix_able, not un_break_able, never un_break_able), and he will be left with the pieces of his broken heart that the knives have torn up.

_**Thanks for reading, and like I said, please REVIEW! **_


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